Somethink to Chew On » Personal

Trivia audio rounds: French, Halloween

Harlan — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:03:25 +0000

Turnout at Pete’s Candy Store’s Quizz-Off was thin last, night, likely due to the Yankee game. But it was fun anyway, particularly as our team was hosting! We had six rounds of brilliant trivia, two of which were audio rounds. Hear them below…

The first audio round, of my design, was songs with at least some French lyrics. One point for the artist, one point for the country of origin or strongest association of the artist. For the historical record, and for your enjoyment, here it is, with answers hidden below (select the text with the mouse to see it). (The Beastie Boys are just to test the volume.)

1   Stereolab, (Three Women), England/UK
2   LaBelle, (Lady Marmalade), USA (not Patty LaBelle!)
3   Arcade Fire, (Une Anee Sans Lumiere), Canada
4   Carla Bruni, (Quelqu’un M’a dit), Italy or France (the first lady!)
5   Amadou and Miriam, (Senegal Fast Food), Mali
6   April March, (Laisee Tombee La Filles/Chick Habit), USA
7   Emmy Lou Harris, (J’ai Fait Tout), USA
8   Wyclef/Muziel, (24 Heures a Vivre), Haiti (Wyclef Jean is fine)
9   Prototypes, (Who’s Gonna Sing), France (used in an iPod commercial)
10   Edith Piaf, (Je ne regret rien), France
11   Le Tigre, (Fake French), USA (not actually French! hah!)

And here’s the second audio round of the evening, created by Rachel. Halloween-themed, loosely, with lyrics or titles of a creepy nature!

1 Radiohead We Suck Young Blood
2 Bobby Pickett Monster Mash
3 Aimee Mann Frankenstein
4 Jay-Z Lucifer
5 Guided by Voices Demons Are Real
6 Indigo Girls Ghost
7 Warren Zevon Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner
8 Rockwell I Always Feel Like Somebody’s Watching Me
9 Crowded House I Feel Possessed
10 AC/DC Hell’s Bells
11 Michael Jackson Thriller

Savory and sweet, pears and beets

Harlan — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:43:33 +0000

Hah, it rhymes! The fall haul (hah!) from the CSA inevitably means two things, root vegetables and ungodly numbers of pears. I love root vegetables, but tend to find pears to be pale imitations of apples. But when poached in red wine, or cooked with butter and sugar, pears can have some redeeming value. Recently, for the cooking club, I teamed up to make a dessert with the theme “Fall Harvest.” We were inspired by a recent recipe from the late, lamented Gourmet magazine, Beet and Pear Napoleons with Ginger Juice Vinaigrette. Roasted beets layered with pears, with flavors of ginger, citrus, tarragon, and poppy. In fact, we were so inspired by the dish, that we made it too, and started the dinner with an amuse of the original recipe:

For the dessert itself, we took these flavors and turned them on their heads. The formerly raw pear circles were now lightly carmelized with sugar and butter. The beet, instead of being roasted, was boiled, pureed, and folded into a chocolate cake batter. The ginger juice was mixed into a buttercream instead of a vinagrette. The texture and visual impact of the poppy seeds was replaced with cocoa nibs. The result was an almost perfectly balanced mixture of fruit and butter flavors, sweet and tart, creamy and crunchy. (If I were to make it again, I’d actually add more pear!) We were very happy with the result:

(recipe outline here)

Welcome

Harlan — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:37:19 +0000

Welcome to my new web page and new blog! I will have various references about me (so far, a list of publications and a list of other sites I can be found on), as well as a blog about things I’m working on or thinking about. Posts will be categorized as Personal or Professional (or both, like this one!), and I think there’s a way to subscribe to an RSS feed of just one or the other, in case you’re uninterested in statistics or food or whatever. (google, google…) Ah, yes, you can. Here’s the Personal feed and here’s the Professional feed. I’ll figure out how to put links to them in the sidebar at some point!